Super Street Network

2008 Nagoya Auto Trend

Nagoya Knows Best

Winter is over, which means the Japanese show season is winding down and track-racing action will soon begin. But before those battles kick off, the city of Nagoya held the proper send-off. The Nagoya Auto Trend filled the massive Nagoya Port Messe exhibition hall with the best that Honshu had to offer. The show included hundreds of show cars, ranging from a Ferrari Enzo to crazy street-driven ATVs, as well as scantily clad campaign girls and toys galore. It was JDM heaven.

The main hall contained a display of the evolution of the Nissan Skyline. It started with a very timid 88hp '50s Skyline and progressed to the present model 3.7-liter Skyline/Infinity G37. Also present was Defend Garage's crazy GT-R lineup. Defend Garage brought out its blistering-fast R32 time attack monster, insane-looking R33, and some pretty sick-looking R34s, but the highlight vehicle had to be its very sexy-looking R35. This hall also housed the main stage in which various performers from the Nagoya area entertained the crowd with concert performances and talk shows throughout the weekend. Rounding out this hall were the toy displays. Tamiya attracted hundreds of participants with its sanctioned RC race and dozens of vendors were slangin' some very sought after trinkets.

The other halls had huge displays from all of the major Japanese auto manufacturers, as well as dance and talk shows scheduled to entertain the show's attendees. The standout manufacturer this year had to be Mitsubishi Motors. With the release of the new Evo X earlier this year, Mitsubishi teamed up with a select few aftermarket manufacturers to fix up a few Evo Xs in its booth. VIP/Bippu cars had a strong presence here and companies like D.A.D./Garson, Junction Produce, and Wald had huge booths. Nippon Denso was flexin' with a Subaru WRC car and a Toyota Formula One car in its booth. Blitz had its all-white car lineup. Their mildly modified R35 seemed to be the most popular in Blitz's stable. Toyota came out swinging with a slue of race-inspired concept cars and modified production cars in its booth. In the main hall Toyota had a display of cars from its private museum. Included in this display was one of its prototype Group C cars and an early '80s WRC Celica.

The Nagoya Auto Trend let us see what type of craziness the tuners in the area had to offer, and we're excited to see what they can come up with next.

HKS Premium Day is one of those events in the world that you absolutely must add to your Calendar. There is no other time or place in the world where you will find the very best built cars in Japan in one place at one time!

Over the course of three days, Jofel and I took our supercharged, widebody, ex-SEMA show car Scion FR-S on a 1125-mile road trip. A first for Targa Trophy, this MegaRun journey would take us across three states.

Few recent releases have had such an impact on the tuner industry as the Scion FR-S/Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ. One could argue this fun RWD platform saved the tuning scene - illustrated at Tokyo Auto Salon the past few years.